The Voice for the St. Louis Construction Industry

Plans Unveiled For Former Crestwood Mall Site

The Remiger Design + Cedergreen team unveiled a comprehensive Master Plan to redevelop the 47-acre site of the former Crestwood Mall. The plan includes retail, office, multifamily, entertainment, parking structures and community spaces. The proposed development was shown at an event for commercial real estate brokers on Wednesday, Oct. 3.

Remiger Design, a St. Louis-based architectural, planning and interior design firm, is working with Chris Cedergreen, a commercial real estate design advisor, with extensive experience master planning and designing large-scale multiuse projects, as well as corporate headquarters and other complex commercial real estate developments, throughout the United States and internationally.

Vern Remiger, founder and president of Remiger Design, discussed plans for an urban town setting for Crestwood City Center, the community’s name. “There is great potential developing a modern lifestyle community where we combine the best of all worlds – a place where people can live, work, play and be entertained. The goal is to create a 24-hour community, with office workers during the day, residents around the clock and the necessary retail, restaurants and entertainment to support workers, residents and visitors to Crestwood City Center.”

Currently plans call for more than 794,000 square feet of buildings for retail, office and residential, but the design is so the plan can respond to market conditions as they develop.

The vision for the project includes:

More than 160,000 square feet of retail and entertainment spaces including 69,000 square feet of street side retail, a pharmacy, four out lots and a cinema. Much of the street side retail will be focused on service-based business such as restaurants, breweries, concert venues, coffee shops and smaller boutique apparel.

240,000 square feet of office and medical space designed to accommodate tenants seeking a large floorplate or a smaller floorplate. Another out lot is set aside for financial or medical use. Some of the retail buildings may also accommodate smaller office users.

The residential component will include a high-end, energy-efficient four-story, multifamily building with amenities such as fitness room, pool, outdoor cooking and meeting areas for residents.

Plans call for nearly 3,000 parking spaces, including several structured parking decks for the office building and surrounding retail and residents. Ground level parking will be abundant throughout the site.

As an urban community, Crestwood City Center will connect to Grant’s Trail, developed by Great Rivers Greenway. The trail is the most heavily used of the region’s 16 active greenways, with more than one-half million bikers and walkers using the trail each year.

“Our connection with Grant’s Trail will tie directly into Crestwood City Center’s town center,” Remiger noted. “This will further the goal of making this an attractive place to live, work and visit.”

Remiger added that Crestwood City Center is modeled after some of the country’s top and successful redevelopments. “We looked at places such as The Market Common in Arlington, VA, Kierland Commons in Scottsdale, AZ, and The Roosevelt Collection in Chicago, IL. Closer to home, you have The Streets of St. Charles, although that’s not nearly on the scale of Crestwood City Center. We believe we can build a first-class development that carries the same urban feel of these successful projects.”

The site sits on the former Crestwood Court, the St. Louis area’s first major mall that opened in 1957. The once bustling mall that became known as Crestwood Plaza once housed more than 100 retailers in its one million square feet. As shoppers’ habits changed, the mall declined until it closed in September 2013.

The current owner UrbanStreet Group has completed the environmental remediation and demolition of the mall. Recently, a group of investors operating within Walpert Properties Inc., a St. Louis-based developer, have the site under contract and have engaged the Remiger Design + Cedergreen team to take the development in a new direction and create the master plan for the mixed-use development. HBD will be the general construction contractor. Pam Hinds and Christopher Zoellner of Balke Brown Transwestern (314-621-1414) are handling the office and retail leasing, respectively, for Crestwood City Center.

Based in St. Louis, MO, the firm provides architectural, planning and interior design services in several environments: education, institutional and industrial facilities, corporate offices, and retail and hospitality. The firm was founded in 2010 by Vern Remiger, an industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience in architecture, interior design, planning and facilities management.